All of the Head Pavilion etchings incorporate the theatrical staging and fantastical architecture seen in Philip Hanson’s later Pavilion Park series. This print, Head Pavilion IV, visually references Pablo Picasso’s sculpture in Chicago’s Daley Plaza, which was dedicated in August 1967. The Art Institute acquired a small study of Picasso’s sculpture in 1966, which Hanson and other students may have seen in the museum.

The dark, heavy use of aquatint in Head Pavilion IV adds a somber and formal dimension to the pavilion series and grounds the structure in space. Solidified and monumental, Head Pavilion IV evokes a temple or the site of a ceremony, with smaller accompanying pavilions issuing trails of smoke.